Trump’s inauguration: Schedule of events and who will attend | Donald Trump News

Trump’s inauguration: Schedule of events and who will attend | Donald Trump News


EXPLAINER

A look at what will happen and who will be there for Trump’s historic return as US president.

For the second time, Donald Trump is set to be sworn in as president of the United States.

Trump’s inauguration in Washington, DC will kick off at noon local time (17:00 GMT). While most of the inauguration’s events will occur today, they will officially conclude on Tuesday with a traditional prayer service at Washington National Cathedral.

Here’s a look at the lineup of official events surrounding Trump’s second inauguration as president. It is still unclear how the decision to move Trump’s swearing-in indoors to the Capitol Rotunda on Monday might affect the scheduled lineup for the ceremony.

Organizers work to move the Inauguration Day swearing-in ceremony into the Capitol Rotunda due to expected frigid weather in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Organisers work to move the inauguration day swearing-in ceremony into the Capitol Rotunda due to expected frigid weather in Washington, DC, Saturday, January 18, 2025 [J Scott Applewhite/AP Photo]

Church service

Trump will start the day by attending a service at St John’s Episcopal Church, located across Lafayette Park from the White House, a tradition for presidents-elect.

White House tea

Trump and incoming First Lady Melania Trump will meet outgoing President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden at the White House for a tea that’s traditionally held to welcome a new president.

Swearing-in ceremony inside the US Capitol Rotunda

  • Musical prelude by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Combined Choirs
  • Prelude: The President’s Own, by the United States Marine Band
  • Call to order by Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota
  • Invocation by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, and the Reverend Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
  • Oh, America!, performed by opera singer Christopher Macchio
  • The vice presidential oath of office administered by US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh
  • America the Beautiful, performed by Carrie Underwood, the Armed Forces Chorus and the United States Naval Academy Glee Club
  • The presidential oath of office administered by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts
  • The Battle Hymn of the Republic, performed by the US Naval Academy Glee Club
Carrie Underwood performs during the Times Square New Year's Eve celebration on Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
Carrie Underwood is scheduled to sing America the Beautiful [File: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Photo]

Trump’s inaugural address

  • Benediction from Yeshiva University’s President Ari Berman, Imam Husham Al-Husainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center, Senior Pastor Lorenzo Sewell of 180 Church Detroit and the Reverend Frank Mann of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn
  • The Star-Spangled Banner, performed by Christopher Macchio

Farewell to the former president

  • A formal farewell will be held for Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as they depart the US Capitol.

The president’s signing ceremony

  • Trump will head to the President’s Room just off the Senate Chamber in the US Capitol for a signing ceremony, where members of Congress watch as the newly sworn-in president signs nominations, memorandums and executive orders.

Inaugural luncheon

  • The new president and vice president attend a luncheon at the National Statuary Hall in the US Capitol hosted by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.

Pass in review

  • After the luncheon, the president and vice president head to the East Front steps of the US Capitol, where they are to review the military troops.

Presidential parade

  • Because of cold weather, Trump is moving the traditional parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to Washington’s Capital One Arena. The event is expected to feature marching bands and remarks from Trump.

Oval Office ceremony

  • Trump heads to the White House for an Oval Office ceremony.

Inaugural balls

  • Commander-in-Chief Inaugural Ball: Country music band Rascal Flatts and country singer Parker McCollum will perform at the ball geared toward military service members. Trump is scheduled to speak.
  • Liberty Inaugural Ball: Rapper Nelly, country singer Jason Aldean and the Village People are scheduled to perform at the ball geared towards Trump’s supporters. Trump is set to give remarks.
  • Starlight Ball: Singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw will perform and Trump will speak at the third inaugural ball, at which guests are expected to be big donors of the incoming president.
Elon Musk is one of Trump's most important supporters
Billionaire Elon Musk has become one of Trump’s most important supporters [File: Evan Vucci/AP Photo]

Who will be attending?

Besides a mix of invited foreign leaders, celebrities and tech giants will also be in attendance.

Scheduled to be there are Trump adviser Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc and SpaceX; Jeff Bezos, executive chairman of Amazon; and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms.

According to NBC News, several athletes and musicians will also be in attendance.

They include National Football League (NFL) wide receiver Antonio Brown, boxer Mike Tyson, martial arts fighter Jorge Masvidal, and NFL player Evander Kane, NBC said, adding that musicians attending include Anuel AA, Justin Quiles, Rod Wave, Kodak Black and Fivio Foreign.

The last surviving founding member of the Village People, Victor Willis, said on Facebook on Monday that the group will perform YMCA, the band’s hit song and a staple at Trump rallies.

President-elect Donald Trump dances with The Village People at a rally ahead of the 60th Presidential Inauguration, Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President-elect Donald Trump dances with the Village People at a rally ahead of the 60th presidential inauguration, Sunday, January 19, 2025, in Washington, DC [Evan Vucci/AP Photo]

Who will cover the costs?

The official events are financed by Trump’s inauguration committee, which is chaired by longtime Trump allies Steve Witkoff, a real estate developer who is Trump’s pick to be his Middle East envoy, and Kelly Loeffler, a former US senator and Trump’s choice to head the Small Business Administration.

The committee will be responsible for covering the costs of everything but the swearing-in ceremony at the US Capitol, which is borne by taxpayers.

Bezos and Zuckerberg pledged to donate $1m each to the committee, as have Apple CEO Tim Cook and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Uber and its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, have each donated $1m to the fund.

Trump raised a record $106.7m for his 2017 inauguration festivities. His committee has raised more than $170m this time, according to media reports.



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Aerial photos show scale of Israeli destruction in Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Aerial photos show scale of Israeli destruction in Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict News


Much of the Gaza Strip is destroyed after more than 15 months of relentless Israeli bombings, leaving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with nowhere to live.

About 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents were forcibly displaced during the genocide – many of them multiple times.

With a ceasefire now in effect, many are returning to their homes, but more than a year of Israeli bombardment has left most houses in ruins and completely uninhabitable.

“The halting of the bloodshed is an indescribable feeling. I thank God that I survived this war safely. However, when we returned to our homes, we found nothing but ruin and destruction. I cannot describe the scene in words. I don’t know what to say,” Jomaa Shadi, a displaced Palestinian, told Al Jazeera.

“I built this house piece by piece, and when I returned to it, I didn’t find it as I knew it. I don’t see my home, I only see destruction.”



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Matty Healy Responds to Reports the Next 1975 Album Is About Taylor Swift | Matty Healy, Music, Taylor Swift, The 1975 | Just Jared: Celebrity News and Gossip

Matty Healy Responds to Reports the Next 1975 Album Is About Taylor Swift | Matty Healy, Music, Taylor Swift, The 1975 | Just Jared: Celebrity News and Gossip


Matty Healy is speaking out about a recent report regarding the next album from his band The 1975.

It’s been over two years since the band released an album, and it was reported over the weekend that the next one will be out the lead vocalist’s ex Taylor Swift. The two briefly dated in 2023.

Keep reading to find out more…

The Sun reported that Matty would break his silence on their brief romance through the band’s sixth album, and the title track is called, “God Has Entered My Body.”

An alleged lyric in the song is, “Keep your head up, princess, your tiara is falling.”

“Everyone at the studio thought this was about Matty’s fling with Taylor and their fleeting romance,” an insider reportedly said. “Matty will never publicly comment on his relationships, but he lets his deepest feelings out in his songs and gets everything off his chest.”

“Fans will want to listen to the lyrics very carefully,” they added.

After a portion of the report was shared to a The 1975 subreddit, Matty responded to the Reddit post, simply saying, “Huge if true.”

This comes months after Matty seemingly referenced Taylor during a podcast appearance and said he wouldn’t write about his love life anymore.

If you recall, Taylor seemingly included several lyrics about her brief fling with Matty on her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department.





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China executes two men for committing deadly ‘revenge on society crimes’ | Death Penalty News

China executes two men for committing deadly ‘revenge on society crimes’ | Death Penalty News


Fan Weiqu had rammed his car into a crowd, killing 35 people, while 21-year-old Xu Jiajin killed eight people and injured 17 in a stabbing attack.

China has executed two men who committed deadly attacks that killed dozens in November, raising concerns about a surge in what are called “revenge on society crimes”, state media reported.

Fan Weiqu, 62, who rammed his car into a crowd outside a sports stadium in the southern city of Zhuhai, killing at least 35 people, was executed on Monday.

The attack was the country’s deadliest in more than a decade, according to authorities. Police said Fan was upset over his divorce settlement.

Also in November, 21-year-old Xu Jiajin killed eight people and injured 17 in a stabbing attack at his vocational school in the eastern city of Wuxi.

Police said Wu had failed his examinations and could not graduate, and was dissatisfied about his pay at an internship. He was also executed on Monday, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Chinese President Xi Jinping urged local governments to take measures to prevent such attacks, known as “revenge on society crimes”.

The two men’s death sentences were issued by the intermediate people’s courts in the cities of Zhuhai and Wuxi, respectively, in December, and approved by the Supreme People’s Court, according to state media.

Violent crimes are rarer in China than in many Western countries, but the country has seen a rise in recent years. Stabbings and car attacks have challenged the governing Communist Party’s reputation for strict public security and crime prevention.

They also carried a shock factor that led some to question perceived social ills such as frustration with a slowing economy, high unemployment and diminishing social mobility.

China classifies death penalty statistics as a state secret, but some rights groups believe the country executes thousands every year. Executions are traditionally carried out by gunshot, though lethal injections have also been introduced in recent years.



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Oxfam says billionaires’ wealth soared in 2024, with 4 ‘minted’ every week | Inequality News

Oxfam says billionaires’ wealth soared in 2024, with 4 ‘minted’ every week | Inequality News


The group’s report comes as some of the world’s political and financial elite prepare for an annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland.

Billionaires’ wealth globally grew three times faster in 2024 than the year before, global advocacy group Oxfam International says, as some of the world’s political and financial elite prepare to attend an annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland.

In its latest assessment of global inequality timed to the opening of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting, Oxfam on Monday said the combined wealth of billionaires rose by $2 trillion to $15 trillion last year.

The report, titled Takers Not Makers, said there were 2,769 billionaires worldwide in 2024, an increase of 204 over the previous year. It noted that at least four new billionaires were “minted” every week during the year, and three-fifths of billionaire wealth came from inheritance, monopoly power or “crony connections”.

Oxfam predicted that at least five trillionaires will crop up over the next decade. A year ago, the group forecast that only one trillionaire would appear in that period.

“The capture of our global economy by a privileged few has reached heights once considered unimaginable. The failure to stop billionaires is now spawning soon-to-be trillionaires. Not only has the rate of billionaire wealth accumulation accelerated – by three times – but so too has their power,” Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar said in a statement.

The group warned that the United States’ President-elect Donald Trump’s policies “are set to fan the flames of inequality further”.

Davos
A British activist holds a sign during a protest against the WEF meeting in Davos [File: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP]

On average, the wealth of a single billionaire increased by $2m a day, Oxfam said. The richest 10 billionaires became richer by an average of $100m per day. Even if they were to lose 99 percent of their wealth overnight, they would still remain billionaires, it said.

In contrast, the report said the number of people living below the World Bank’s poverty line has “barely budged” since the 1990s and the number of people going hungry is rising.

The report is based on data from sources including estimates of the wealth of billionaires made by the US business magazine Forbes and data from the World Bank.

The WEF meeting in the Alpine village of Davos, starting Monday, expects to host some 3,000 attendees, including business executives, academics, government officials, and civic group leaders.

Trump, who visited Davos twice during his first term and is set to take the oath of office also on Monday, is expected to take part in the forum’s event by video on Thursday. He has long championed wealth accumulation – including his own – and counts multibillionaire Elon Musk as a top adviser.

“What you’re seeing at the moment is a billionaire president taking oaths today, backed by the richest man. So this is pretty much the jewel in the crown of the global oligarchies,” Oxfam’s Behar said, referring to Trump and Musk.

“It’s not about one specific individual. It’s the economic system that we have created where the billionaires are now pretty much being able to shape economic policies, social policies, which eventually gives them more and more profit,” he added.

The group called on governments to tax the richest to reduce inequality and extreme wealth, and to “dismantle the new aristocracy”. It also called for steps like the break-up of monopolies, capping CEO pay, and regulation of corporations to ensure they pay “living wages” to workers.



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stocks, news, data and earnings

stocks, news, data and earnings


HSBC shares rise to multi-year high

HSBC shares are off to a strong start this week and are currently trading at a 17-year high on an intraday basis.

The lender’s London-listed A-shares rose to £8.286 after the stock market opened, its highest level since Nov. 2 2007.

And it’s not the only bank notching highs this morning.

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European markets flat

The U.K.’s FTSE 100 and Germany’s DAX indexes were marginally higher on Monday morning, after hitting an all-time high on Friday.

The FTSE was 0.08% higher, the DAX was 0.04% in the green and the French CAC was up 0.1%.

Spain’s Ibex was also slightly higher, but Italy’s FTSE Mib fell by 0.36% by 10:16 a.m. London time.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 slipped 0.04%.

— Ganesh Rao

Judges Scientific says organic revenue fell 5.8%

Judges Scientific, a conglomerate holding several U.K.-based scientific instruments manufacturers, reported an annual decline in revenue in 2024 in a trading update out Monday.

The company said organic revenues fell 5.8% in 2024 compared to the previous year.

Founded in 2002 by CEO David Cicurel, the business now has a large retail investor following after raising its dividend payout annually over the past 17 years.

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“The operational leverage in the business means that the small decline in organic revenue has a large impact on profitability,” the firm said in a stock market filing. It’s expected to unveil its full-year results on March 19.

“Other headwinds affected our businesses to varying degrees, including a large reduction in orders from China, together with a general weakness in order intake and some customers delaying orders and deliveries,” the company added.

Analysts at investment bank Jefferies had downgraded the stock ahead of the filing to “Hold” saying they see “clear short-term vulnerability due to the difficult trading backdrop”.

“On a longer-term view, we continue to see Judges as one of the highest-quality names in our coverage – the unique operating model and strategy has resulted in sector leadership on a range of financial metrics, which should continue as end markets recover – and there is plenty of scope for an ongoing stream of attractive M&A,” the Jefferies analysts added.

— Ganesh Rao

South Korea pledges record financial support for exporters as Trump returns to White House

South Korea’s finance ministry pledged to provide a record  360 trillion won ($247.74 billion) of financial support to its exporters as Donald Trump is set to begin his second term as president.

The ministry also announced it will increase its exchange rate insurance support to 1.4 trillion won this year, up from 1.2 trillion won in 2024.

The statement added that semiconductors and rechargeable batteries were among sectors more at risk from potential new U.S. policies.

— Lee Ying Shan

China keeps benchmark lending rates unchanged as it contends with a weakening yuan

China left its benchmark lending rates unchanged Monday, as Beijing contends with a weakening yuan while awaiting policy clues from the incoming Donald Trump administration.

The People’s Bank of China held the 1-year loan prime rate at 3.1%, and the 5-year LPR at 3.6%, according to the PBOC statement.

The 1-year LPR determines rates on corporate and most household loans, while the 5-year LPR acts as a reference for mortgage loans.

Read the full story here.

— Anniek Bao

European markets: Here are the opening calls

European markets are expected to open in mixed territory on Monday.

The U.K.’s FTSE 100 index is expected to open 12 points lower at 8,493, Germany’s DAX up 3 points at 20,897, France’s CAC up 6 points at 7,720 and Italy’s FTSE MIB up 21 points at 36,351, according to data from IG.

There are no major earnings or data releases Monday.

— Holly Ellyatt



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